Linux Mint Forums

Forum rules
There are no such things as "stupid" questions. However if you think your question is a bit stupid, then this is the right place for you to post it. Please stick to easy to-the-point questions that you feel people can answer fast. For long and complicated questions prefer the other forums within the support section.Before you post please read how to get help

This is very frustrating ...I downloaded, burned the disk, and successfully installed Linux Mint 14.1 on my Dell desktop. IT seems to work ok, except the fonts are somewhat chopped around sometimes. Certain letters are not right, some look like ? Sanskrit, and get dislocated or are missing. This happens sometimes in menus and on desktop file names, but especially in Firefox, where it is almost impossible to read anything. I tried some "fixes" but have had no success so far. There is nothing wrong with the Dell, it was working OK on XP, and the Linux install went OK, except for this ... I think it is pretty odd that the distribution would have this crazy font defect.

Well, maybe this doesn't look like a question being asked, so ... Is there a fix for this ?

The machine used to have Windows XP Professional, but that is gone now, with several Linux Mint installs over it. I have three times successfully installed this Linux districution, image burned to DVD, into the Dell via its optical drive.Linuxmint-14.1 - mate-dvd-32bit.iso completely replacing the Windows OS, using the entire hard drive.

Each install behaved the same, everything works fine, but the fonts are generally chopped up and in many places impossible to read. Sometimes, by highlighting the words, they become correct, but sometimes not. Sometimes it is possible to highlight-copy-paste them into another place, and they become readable. RIght now, the wireless adapter is removed from the computer's USB port, and I have not allowed this install to access the internet. Previously in the first install, I connected and enabled the wireless, Mint found the network, and downloaded some considerable amount of updates, which did nothing to improve the font problem, but progressively FIrefox got worse and worse with the font becoming totally distorted.

I have been into the fonts tab and tried to adjust settings according to some suggestions, such as ensuring 96dpi, and pixel rendering, but the default settings are persistent, and there is no "OK" button to fasten them permanently, just an exit, and when returning, they have reverted.

Presently, there have been no changes made to the install fresh from the disk.

I would be willing to reinstall another distribution, but am not sure where best to get one.The downloads from Linux, and DVD burns were done on a Windows 7 desktop.

How would I post it ? The machine I am on right now is a Windows machine, not the one that has the Linux and the problem. That machine is nearly impossible to use, and I have no experience with capture programs on it. It is nearly impossible to use Firefox on the Dell with the problem Linux OS.

I will try to photograph the output with a camera, and post that jpeg here ....

Please disregard the relative darkness of these pictures, and disregard the moire' effects ... the monitor screen actually looks very bright, sharp and clear, with good vivid color. It is the fonts that are the only problem.

You can see why showing the output from inxi -F is going to be difficult to use.

I'm really getting mad at this entire process .... Apparently my computer's on-board graphics hardware ( or its driver ? ) is not compatible with Linux OS. I have tried 14, and 12 . Why wouldn't Linux make sure the OS would accommodate such a widely used computer ?

Seems the only path I have is to either find a driver that works, but can be downloaded and saved on my Windows machine, and moved to, then installed on, the Dell with the Linux OS. Or just give up, junk the Dell, and avoid Linux altogether.

I have spent hours looking online for drivers, looking thru drivers lists and descriptions, but am now downloading LM12 LXDE which I did not initially recognize as the name of a Linux distribution. 'Will update this discussion tomorrow.

Thanks for what has been offered so far, higher hopes for the LM12 LXDE install.

LM12 LXDE .... installed and working ... genuinely is a bit better .... with the fonts, but still some distortion on desktop fonts, and just as bad with internet as before, unreadable and unusable. I was actually able to highlight some unintelligible text from a website, copy it, and then paste it into the word process program, where it was readable.

Still a discouraging situation, with the fonts being messed up. Any fixes ?

Looking at your image, it seems some names look OK, deja sans mono (which is more useful as a console, terminal font)--you won't get proportional text in an office suite or in the menus, if you use a mono font for everything..

I kinda suspect your keyboard selection, and I would be checking there first to see which keyboards you have selected, whether you have changed the locale ( national language)--I don't know what the characters between the fonts displays are, is it some control character (would be coming from the keyboard..)

And for fonts specifically

Font rendering

Font selection/choice

LCD sub-pixel anti-aliasing and so on--just flip through the choices available on the menus and see what appears to be best..

Looks like some readers missed the subsequent post, written and posted after the pictures, where I re-installed a different Linux distribution, the LM12 LXDE, replacing the OS that was in the Dell when the photos were taken.

The newly installed LM12 LDXE has only the default fonts as installed, no changes made. The problem in this newly installed LM12 LXDE OS is the same, there are parts of letters missing, letters are not arranged on lines straight, boxes display crooked, and rotate out of level. The language is standard English, the keyboard is standard American, the Linux menu choices are defaults, the same. The distribution was downloaded from an American source, as recommended from the Linux online page.

I have been into the Font controls, and made the suggested settings, and the different fonts typefaces do not make any difference; letters get chopped up, and left out, and dislocated, or substituted with what appear to be distorted or possibly foreign characters. Every install I have done, with three different Linux MInt OS, 10, 12, and 14, has done the same thing with the fonts. ..... I will take some more photos, and post them from this WIndows 7 machine, since using the internet is impossible on the Linux Dell machine. It is online, and working ok for internet access, but unless I can know what words are, from their positions or arrangement on the page, they are unreadable. Fonts on the internet are much more deranged than the ones in the photos.

NEW INSTALL again, Thursday January 3. This time I installed Mint Maya, 64-bit. Yes it works fine, as well as any of the 32-bit distributions, on this 32-bit Dell.

The font problem is the same, actually the best result yet, but still on the internet, it is impossible to read.

I don't know how to express this any better, but the suggestions for updating my system, or downloading the latest etc. are really not getting the point. A fresh install, not changing any parameters. Well, actually, I indicated BRITISH English as the native language during the install, but it is the same, except for a few spellings that any American would recognize.

The point, is that unless one can read the internet information, it seems impossible to use he internet Linux site to update the OS.Please keep this in mind when making suggestions on settings changes.

One possible solution I am thinking about, is to get a windows machine that works to parallel the Linux machine, go to the same sites, use the Windows machine to read the info, and by comparing the two separate monitors from different machines, try to make the proper selections on the Linux machine.

I still have no clear idea of what to install, or change. To recap, it is now a complete, clear and fresh NEW install of Linux Mint 13 MATE, 64-bit, and it is working fine in all aspects except the fonts which are as described previously.

The deeper into internet pages and links you go, the worse the fonts look, until they become totally unreadable.

I think there must be some update or patch that would fix the OS for this.

Interesting effect is that if I open the text edit program, and type anything, everything, all the characters and punctuation show perfect.NO problems there, in the text edit program. The letters of all the fonts display perfectly. But the window labels, the title at the head of the page, and the tabs with their drop-down menus, all show the defects in their character shapes. But not the typed-in contents on the page.

I have GX280 running LM with no problem, with the same exact specs, except before installing Mint I upgraded my bios to A08, you're still running A04. Even testing Mint in a virtual box months ago I had messages telling me I needed to upgrade my bios or Mint may display incorrectly I'm surprised you didn't see that message. Through the years on two different computers and different versions of Mint I've always seen this message. Ubuntu,Xubuntu,Peppermint2,Bodhi even PCLinuxOS XFCE never showed this message only Mint.

Would you know if it is possible for me to update the bios, or flash it, to install the A08 version, when it is already running Linux ?

There is no more Windows for this machine, my Acronis image program back-up disks will no longer work to reinstall the XP os that was on the Dell, and I never had a Dell factory XP disk. So I don't know how to get it back to Windows now, it has had numerous Linux distributions installed over each other, the newest one being the Maya, and it is the only one on the machine, with no additional partitions to C-drive.

If it is possible to flash the Bios, where would I get the update A08 version, and how would I install it ?

Would you know if it is possible for me to update the bios, or flash it, to install the A08 version, when it is already running Linux ?

There is no more Windows for this machine, my Acronis image program back-up disks will no longer work to reinstall the XP os that was on the Dell, and I never had a Dell factory XP disk. So I don't know how to get it back to Windows now, it has had numerous Linux distributions installed over each other, the newest one being the Maya, and it is the only one on the machine, with no additional partitions to C-drive.

If it is possible to flash the Bios, where would I get the update A08 version, and how would I install it ?

I never attempted to flash bios in linux I downloaded the a08 file from Dell and upgraded using my win XP partition.

I guess you going have ask a friend to borrow a windows disk or find one on the net to download. I've heard you can use freedos or you could try at your own risk this way here

To get the requested info, I copy / pasted the Terminal output from the Dell/Linux machine ( which info was almost reduced to gibberish from the damaged fonts) , into Plume text edit, saved and copied onto a zip drive, moved to this Windows machine, - then opened and re-saved the file in Windows' WordPad program as a .txt file, then copy/pasted it above. Obviously Linux knows exactly what the characters are, recognizes the text data properly even though it doesn't display the text data properly and reproduces it distorted, until it is finally recovered and displayed somewhere Linux isn't messing it up.